November 22, 2021
President Bio’s trophy is set to kick off on the 28th November 2021 at the Siaka Stevens Stadium with two renowned Communities set to start the opening ceremony.
This year President Bio trophy has a national flavor as teams were drawn across the Country.
According to David Momoh, the Chief organizer of the tournament ,this year’s tournament a total of ninety-six teams will have to be parts of this year`s tournament.
The teams cut across the country and the formats have two faces the regional and the National which comprises of the Western area, will be having 32 teams, North 16 teams, North-West 16 teams, South -16 teams, and East 16 teams and the opening ceremony will be between Mountain City Community bitter rivals Leicester City Community.
He added that for the regionals four teams will progress and in the Western area four teams will progress from the qualifiers and in the other regions, three teams will qualify and book their tickets to the national finals where teams will play on a knockout basis on to the finals.
He furthered that in terms of funding to the teams, he said the president is so passionate about football and in his wisdom decided that we as organizers should involve the Communities teams as well as the Chiefdoms because for far too long they have been dormant and they need to be part of the tournament. He confirmed that no Premier League players are going to be allowed to play in this tournament; reasons are the motive is to scout new players from remote communities to the national level and the International stage.
David Momoh said in the 80s and 90s a lot of players were scouted from Communities, the Likes of Alie Gangaie, Max Macaulay, John Dissa, Gbassay Sesay were all from the Provinces who played in top-flight football the Sierra Leone Premier League and end up representing the Country.
He called on Sierra Leoneans to give support to their Communities teams, Chiefdom teams with that the tournament will be successful.
Sam Johnson, the head coach of Leicester City Community starting by telling thanks to the organizers for his Community to part of the President Julius Maada Bio Trophy,
“We are prepared for the tournament and not only the opening ceremony, the Community we are going to meet in the Opening Ceremony we know about them much and it’s a Community we have met in Community football but am confident we are going to win the match,” he said.
Rahim Sesay the team manager of Mountain City Community said they are well prepared to face their bitter rivals and the one he is happy about is that when the organizers disclosed that no premier League players are not going to be allowed to play in this tournament, we more than ready to face them and I am calling on the fans of Mountain City to come out in numbers and support their community.
According to the organizer’s the Palm Tree Sports Foundation teams are going to give seed money to the teams some of one million to prepare for the match day, and they will be given two sets of Jersey, three balls each, and provide security to all the venues where the matches are going to play.